Few could have predicted the theatrical success of the recent spate of feature-length nature films, especially Winged Migration (2001), directed by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, and Luc Jacquet’s March of the Penguins (2005), which has spawned no end of penguin-philia. What led the way was a 1996 documentary on insect life, Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou’s Microcosmos, subtitled Le peuple de l’herbe (The people of the grass).

I first saw Microcosmos at Film Forum in New York City, a nonprofit cinema house; I remember entering the theater and realizing with dismay that I was surrounded by children. I had read that the film had almost no narration, and I couldn’t imagine young children having the patience for it. To my amazement, they maintained a rapt silence throughout the film—as did I.

In the United States, nature films have become a staple of television and of the Imax presentations in museums and science centers, but historically, few have made it into commercial theaters. Of course, there have been exceptions. Beginning with Seal Island (1948), Disney’s True-Life Adventure films were hits on the big screen before becoming ubiquitous on television and in schoolrooms. And the alarmist slant of The Hellstrom Chronicle, which warned that insects would overtake humanity, helped that film succeed as a commercial release even as it won its directors, Walon Green and Ed Spiegel, the 1971 Academy Award for best documentary feature.

Seeing the tiny worlds revealed by Nuridsany and Pérennou projected large was a revelation that transformed the world normally beneath our feet into mythic proportions. Not only did I find the imagery of insects in Microcosmos astonishing, but I was deeply moved by the filmmakers’ attitude toward their subjects, and especially by their willingness to allow viewers to see what insects do, rather than simply listen to an explanatory lecture.

Nuridsany and Pérennou began as biology students, then reconfigured themselves into accomplished nature photographers, publishing several books. In the mid-1980s they decided to try their hand at 16-millimeter filmmaking, producing three films for French television: Les habitants du miroir (The inhabitants of the mirror, 1986), Le jeu de l’insecte et de la fleur (The play of insect and flower, 1987), and Voyage au pays de l’invisible (Journey to the land of the invisible, 1987). The success of those films, and the filmmakers’ increasing discomfort with the restrictions of television, led to their decision to make a feature. Microcosmos took four years to make; it was followed by Genesis in 2004. A third feature, La clé des champs (The key to the fields) is in progress.

After seeing Microcosmos and other recent nature films in theaters, and discussing them with the students who participate in my classes on the history of cinema, I have come to see nature filmmaking as a new kind of avant-garde. I am increasingly impressed by the creators’ courage, persistence, and implicit environmentalist commitment. And as is typical of avant-garde film, this body of work has been largely ignored by those who chronicle film history. Despite their cinematic accomplishments and their recent successes, nature filmmakers are rarely accorded the respect they deserve.

To develop a more complete understanding of theatrical nature features and the backgrounds of those who make them, in March of 2007 I initiated an interview with Nuridsany and Pérennou. With the assistance of my French-speaking Hamilton College colleague, Martine Guyot-Bender, I exchanged questions and answers with them over a period of several months. Our edited exchange follows.

Q: What moved the two of you into filmmaking, and into this particular kind of filmmaking?

A: When we met, both of us were students in biology in Paris at the Pierre and Marie Curie University. We had decided to study biology because, ever since our childhoods, both of us had been very interested in animals and in nature, but we were also interested in philosophical issues: for example, what does it mean to be “alive”? This is the main theme of our most recent movie, Genesis. As students we were asking ourselves many questions about life, and not only about the lives of animals, but also about our own lives. We were full of questions about our correct place in this world.

We earned master’s degrees, then worked on our PhDs. Our original plan was to become researchers in biology, but we were very disappointed with our first contacts with research laboratories—maybe we had too romantic an idea about research work. We decided to leave the university and become freelance researchers.

For several years, we took photographs of nature and enjoyed writing about nature, trying always not to do “pure science” articles or books, but to mix science and more personal expression. Very soon, we wanted to make films about nature and animals, thinking it would be the best way to combine what had become our two primary passions: cinema and nature.